It is the winter of our year. Skies are gray; trees are
bare and shivering in the prairie winds. Tall grass is brown, flowers asleep.
It's the winter of our souls. Our Lord Jesus Christ will soon be put to death at the
hands of men and women.
The season of Lent brings with its passing the last harsh winds of winter. Already the
first shoots of wheat are touching the dreary landscape with color. We know the southerly
breezes and the tulips and the smell of spring rain are just out of reach.
And we know that our Redeemer lives!
The season of Lent, the winter of our souls, is a time for meditation, for deep
reflection. It was in the winter of our souls that Jesus died, cold and alone, so that
that we might live in the sunshine. Think of him now.
Follow me, he said, and I will make you fishers of men. Feed my lambs.
The ones to whom Christ spoke these words, Peter and Andrew, did not think they had
much talent. They were itinerant fishermen, workers without pedigree. Yet Jesus called
them: Follow me, feed my lambs.
And so he calls us. Follow me. Feed my lambs. We may feel clumsy and incompetent like
Peter and Andrew. Maybe we think we have nothing to offer. But each and every one of us is
gifted in some way by the Holy Spirit to do what Christ asks: Love one another. Go into
the world and make disciples. Feed the hungry. Care for the sick. Preach, teach, witness,
pray, proclaim, nurture, admonish, share. All things in love, according to our gifts.
This booklet is a gift to you. The meditations contained here are based on passages
from Scripture that encourage us to discover and use the spiritual gifts each of us has
been given by God. In joyful response to God's love, in the certainty of his empowering
presence, we are called to understand those gifts and channel them into Christian action.
As the gloom of winter fades into the brilliance of a Kansas spring, as the sadness of
the inexorable march to the cross dissolves into the unspeakable joy of resurrection, let
us join together in community and give thanks to our God who has given us all that we
have.
Follow him. Feed the lambs.
O Lord, throughout These Forty Days.
Text based on Claudia F. Hernaman, 1838-1898
